Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has deployed several emergency teams to Niger to contain a meningitis outbreak that has killed 179 people since the beginning of the year. Working closely with Niger’s Ministry of Public Health, MSF teams have vaccinated more than 358,800 people in the most affected areas while continuing to monitor at-risk areas and provide medical care to those affected by the disease. So far, the number of meningitis cases recorded across Niger this year has almost doubled compared to 2016 during the same period.

The routine use of antibiotics in the treatment of severe acute malnutrition has minimal impact on the likelihood of recovery, according to a major study of more than 2,000 children by the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and its research arm Epicentre, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Refugees from the West African country of Mali face insufficient levels of assistance in camps rife with disease and malnutrition where the looming rainy season will further complicate the deployment of aid.

MSF and its local partners have treated 77,000 severely malnourished children in Niger this year and are distributing food supplements to 143,000 young children. To address a recurrent nutritional crisis, prevention is crucial.

New York, NY, January 21, 2009 — According to a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), children in rural Niger who received ready-to-use food in addition to their normal diet were nearly 60 percent less likely to progress to the most life-threatening form of malnutrition than children whose diets were not supplemented.

Paris/Niamey, October 21, 2008 — Three months after Nigerien authorities suspended the activities of the French section of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the international medical humanitarian organization is calling for an immediate resumption of its nutritional operations in the Maradi region.